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24308.28475
Political meritocracy is the idea that political institutions should aim to empower those people who are particularly well-suited to rule. This article surveys recent literature in democratic theory that argues on behalf of institutional arrangements that aim to realize the ideal of political meritocracy. We detail two prominent families of meritocratic proposals: nondemocratic meritocracy and weighted voting. We then describe and briefly evaluate five potentially important criticisms of political meritocracy related to the coherence of merit as an ideal, the demographic objection, rent-seeking, political inequality, and social peace. We also consider the key ways in which existing electoral democracies create spaces for institutionally meritocratic forms. Finally, we highlight the importance of exploring institutional innovations that allow democracies to effectively incorporate expertise without, at the same time, becoming vulnerable to the criticisms of political meritocracy that we discuss.
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198272.284864
Teleparallel Gravity (TPG) is an alternative, but empirically equivalent, spacetime theory to General Relativity. Rather than as a manifestation of spacetime curvature, TPG conceptualises gravitational degrees of freedom as a manifestation of spacetime torsion. In its modern formulation (as presented e.g. in the book-length study by Aldrovandi and Pereira (2013)), TPG also and expressly purports to be both a gauge theory of translations (G), as well as locally Lorentz-invariant (L). However, the reasoning which these authors invoke in order to implement (L) and (G) is often involved; indeed its mathematical coherence seems on occasion to be questionable. As such, clarification of the reasoning upon which TPG proponents rely in constructing the theory is sorely needed. The present paper will address this need. More broadly, we aim at achieving three interrelated tasks: (i) to shed light on TPG’s aspirations of maintaining (G) and (L) at the same time, (ii) to illuminate TPG’s conceptual and interpretative structure, and (iii) to offer a succinct methodological assessment of TPG as a theory per se.
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256036.284875
The concept of infinity has long occupied a central place at the intersection of mathematics and philosophy. This paper explores the multifaceted concept of infinity, beginning with its mathematical foundations, distinguishing between potential and actual infinity and outlining the revolutionary insights of Cantorian set theory. The paper then explores paradoxes such as Hilbert’s Hotel, the St. Petersburg Paradox, and Thomson’s Lamp, each of which reveals tensions between mathematical formalism and basic human intuition. Adopting a philosophical approach, the paper analyzes how five major frameworks—Platonism, formalism, constructivism, structuralism, and intuitionism—each grapple with the metaphysical and epistemological implications of infinity. While each framework provides unique insights, none fully resolves the many paradoxes inherent in infinite mathematical objects. Ultimately, this paper argues that infinity serves not as a problem to be conclusively solved, but as a generative lens through which to ask deeper questions about the nature of mathematics, knowledge, and reality itself.
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428995.284889
Even when one continued to speak of the fundamental concepts of theoretical physics as symbols, in order to avoid from the first any danger of ontological interpretation, there was a necessity of attributing to these very symbols themselves a theoretical meaning and therewith an “objective” content. Far from being merely arbitrary additions to what was given by direct observations they became essential factors with which alone an organization of the given, the fusion of the isolated details into the system of experience, was possible. The first great physicist actually to complete this turn of affairs and at the same time to grasp the full measure of its philosophical implications, was Heinrich Hertz, with whom began a new phase in the theory of physical methods.
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429041.284896
There is large consensus across clinical research that feelings of worthlessness (FOW) are one of the highest risk factors for a patient’s depression becoming suicidal. In this paper, I attempt to make sense of this empirical relationship from a phenomenological perspective. I propose that there are purely reactive and pervasive forms of FOW. Subsequently, I present a phenomenological demonstration for how and why it is pervasive FOW that pose a direct suicidal threat. I then outline criteria, contingent upon empirical verification, by which clinicians can more confidently identify when a patient’s FOW place them at high risk of suicide.
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429063.284903
Heinrich Hertz dedicated the last four years of his life to a systematic reformulation of mechanics. One of the main issues that troubled Hertz in the traditional formulation was a ‘logical obscurity’ in the notion of force. However, it is unclear what this logical obscurity was, hence it is unclear how Hertz took himself to have avoided this obscurity in his own formulation of mechanics. In this paper, I argue that a subtle ambiguity in Newton’s original laws of motion led to the development of two slightly different notions of force: Newtonian and Lagrangian. I then show how Hertz employed the mathematical apparatus of differential geometry to arrive at a unitary notion of force, thus avoiding the logical obscurity that lurked in the customary representation of mechanics.
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429088.284911
It is widely accepted that Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics was one of Wittgenstein’s earliest and longest-lasting influences. Wittgenstein cited Principles in the Tractatus and also considered using a quotation from Hertz’s introduction as the motto for the Philosophical Investigations. 1
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544459.284918
Radical ontic structural realism (ROSR) argues that structure is all that there is and that objects are metaphysically eliminable. By making such claims, ROSR is widely considered metaphysically obscure. To address this, I propose a novel characterisation of ROSR, drawing on two metaphysical concepts: existence monism, attributed to Spinoza by Bennett (1984) and Spinoza’s concept of modes. These concepts are adaptable to ROSR, which becomes a structuralist existence monism, where putative objects are reconceptualised as modes of the world’s structure. This proposal directly contributes to solving two problems ROSR faces: (A) the need for a metaphysical framework clarifying ROSR’s key claims and (B) ROSR’s need to account for the apparent plurality of objects we experience. Drawing on Wallace and Timpson’s (2010) spacetime state realism, I suggest a solution to a third problem, (problem C), McKenzie’s (2024) challenge to ROSR's status as a substantive metaphysical doctrine. My reformulation of ROSR is a natural interpretation of this solution. I also compare my proposal to French’s (2014) ROSR, and Esfeld and Lam's (2011) moderate structural realism, highlighting my proposal's advantages.
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544482.284925
In his comprehensive survey of the contemporary debate over scientific progress in philosophy of science, Rowbottom observes that philosophers of science have mostly relied on interpretations of historical cases from the history of science and intuitions elicited by hypothetical cases as evidence for or against philosophical accounts of scientific progress. Only a few have tried to introduce empirical evidence into this debate, whereas most others have resisted the introduction of empirical evidence by claiming that doing so would reduce the debate to empirical studies of science. In this paper, I set out to show how empirical evidence can be introduced into the scientific progress debate. I conduct a corpus-based, quantitative study whose results suggest that there is a positive linear relationship between knowledge that talk and knowledge how talk in scientific articles. These results are contrary to Niiniluoto’s view according to which there is a clear distinction between scientific progress and technological progress such that knowledge that belongs to the former, whereas knowledge how belongs to the latter.
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659547.284933
It is now a more or less biennial event: a professional philosopher, employed in an Anglophone philosophy department, publishes a book denouncing “analytic philosophy,” the predominant mode of the discipline in which they work. …
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659797.284939
The reason why this article does not involve mathematical formulas is that the author 's mathematical ability is limited, and the article only has enlightening effect. A good beginning often ends up not wonderful, I prefer a wonderful end. Therefore, the first half of the article is not of great value, but more of a process of exploration.
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749930.284946
The target article highlights research known to have promoted unjustified politicized claims. It also points out that, although researcher political biases might account for this, there are often alternative explanations. It then discusses areas of research in which those alternative explanations are unlikely, so that the best explanation is political bias. The target article is fundamentally correct. Nonetheless, we argue that political bias is a characteristic of the claims made in research articles rather than primarily a characteristic of scientists. Inasmuch as some claim is not wrong simply by virtue of supporting an ideological narrative, to detect politically biased research, we identify four questions to be answered. Test 0 is necessary but not sufficient to infer political bias. If Test 0 is passed, then at least one of Tests 1, 2, or 3 must also be passed. Test 0: Does the study vindicate some political narrative? Test 1: Did they misinterpret or misrepresent their results in ways that unjusti fiably advance a particular politicized narrative? Test 2: Do the authors systematically ignore papers and studies inconsistent with their ideology-af firming conclusions? Test 3: Did they leap to ideology-affirming conclusions based on weak data? We close with recommendations for preventing politically biased conclusions.
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775098.284954
In this contribution I will start in Section 2 by introducing epistemic competence. I will stress that like Bussmann, I regard it as fundamental that people in a democratic society possess epistemic competence and that it would be important to teach epistemic competence at school. In Section 3 I show that even for countries where the epidemiological situation is roughly the same or very similar such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland, there are often very different recommendations concerning vaccinations. In Section 4 I will identify and discuss five rational reasons that can alone or in combination lead to different vaccine recommendations. Finally, section 5 will reflect on epistemic competence and vaccine recommendations. In particular, I will point out that different vaccine recommendations are an example where students can develop epistemic competence. Further, I will stress that different vaccine recommendations are an example where epistemic competence among the general population is desirable; if it is not present, this can lead to science scepticism and mistrust about science.
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775153.284961
It is typically held that Thomas Kuhn was committed to a descriptivist view of the meaning of theoretical terms, and that his most infamous thesis – incommensurability – was a consequence of this. The causal theory of reference supposedly rules out incommensurability by allowing the extension of a term, rather than merely the intension, to (at least partly) constitute the meaning of the term, thereby ensuring that part of the ‘meaning’ remains constant across theory changes. It is therefore surprising to find Kuhn endorsing aspects of the causal theory in several later essays while still maintaining the possibility of incommensurability. This paper will investigate how Kuhn understood both the causal theory and incommensurability, such that his endorsement of both was not the bald-faced contradiction it would be according to the standard reading. In fact, many of the affinities of Kuhn’s view with the causal theory are part of what make ii incommensurability possible, or so I will argue. More generally, I will suggest that Kuhn should be thought of as rejecting the very idea that the meaning of scientific terms is some aggregate of extension, and intension or sense.
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775187.284967
This paper addresses the issue of the different levels of description of matter and the relationships between them. Specifically, it focuses on the area of crystalline solids, a topic that has been scarcely analyzed in the philosophy of chemistry. Unlike other cases where the relevant levels are clearly defined, the scientific practice related to crystals introduces new entities, such as phonons, which complicate the ontological landscape. In order to organize the discussion, the conceptual implications of describing crystals through three distinct levels are explored: the atomistic, the phononic, and the crystal as a whole. Existing proposals for understanding the phenomenon are analyzed, and based on the introduction of the Tensor Product Structure approach, it is argued that the ontological perspectives of crystals depend on external criteria beyond the formalism that describes them. In the absence of external criteria, a pluralistic ontology is obtained, granting equal status to all entities. On the other hand, privileging the total system or the fundamental components leads to holistic or atomistic ontologies, respectively.
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864486.284973
Experimental jurisprudence (or “X-Jur”) addresses
questions of jurisprudence or legal philosophy by complementing
traditional philosophical analysis with empirical methods. Often those
methods include survey experiments that examine laypeople’s
intuitions about legal-philosophical thought experiments and concepts
of legal significance (e.g., causation, intent, reasonableness). Other
times, experimental jurisprudence focuses on the cognitive processes
underlying legal reasoning. This entry reviews representative work in
experimental jurisprudence and discusses major objections and
critiques.
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865432.284979
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), a copy of which is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ . Subject to this licence, all rights are reserved.
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912381.284986
Very short summary: This essay argues that local governance is less prone to succumb to populism because, compared to national politics, citizens are more empowered and monitoring of elected officials is easier. …
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948218.284993
Although William Herschel (1738-1822) is most well-known as an astronomer and instrument-maker, he also had interests in speculative philosophy (e.g., metaphysics), as several papers he read at the Bath Philosophical Society reveal. These papers, arguably, are the context in which Herschel engaged most directly in philosophical argumentation and are thus worthy of greater scholarly attention. In this article, I focus on Herschel’s paper entitled “On the Utility of Speculative Inquiries,” in which he debates the legitimacy of speculation with an unnamed interlocutor, referred to as the “Gentleman.” In section 1, I briefly discuss Herschel’s intellectual background.
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979207.285
Greetings from Kyoto, Japan! Here’s an excerpt from Unbeatable’s last chapter. [from Chapter 6: Four Candid Conversations]
This is the dialogue chapter, where I argue against a wide variety of fictional archetypes. …
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1031157.285007
Guess I’m A Rationalist Now
A week ago I attended LessOnline, a rationalist blogging conference featuring many people I’ve known for years—Scott Alexander, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Zvi Mowshowitz, Sarah Constantin, Carl Feynman—as well as people I’ve known only online and was delighted to meet in person, like Joe Carlsmith and Jacob Falkovich and Daniel Reeves. …
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1063566.285013
The notion of quantum state plays a fundamental role within the Standard account of Quantum Mechanics (SQM) as established by Dirac and von Neumann during 1930s and up to the present. In this work we expose the deep inconsistencies that exist within the multiple definitions of the notion of quantum state that are provided within this axiomatic formulation. As we will argue, these different inconsistent definitions continue to be —even today— uncritically confused within the mainstream physical and philosophical literature leading to self-contradictory statements and wrong conclusions. We end with a discussion regarding the untenability of this concept for any rational understanding of theoretical physics.
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1063641.28502
Networks are used for many different purposes in science -- for example, to provide diagnoses, as when differences in functional connectivity in brains, represented by networks, are used to distinguish subjects with mental disorders from those who are healthy. Networks are also used to classify diseases on the basis of patterns of co-occurrence or to group proteins together on the basis of whether they interact with other proteins. But in addition, networks are also used to explain. The main focus of this paper is one very common form that such explanations can take. Put informally these are cases in which what is of interest is the spread of some process along a network and the explanandum is some overall behavior of the system characterized by the network (as opposed, say, to why some particular node in the network is in a certain state) . Examples include the spread of a disease along a contact network (explaining why the disease spreads rapidly or becomes an epidemic), the propagation of neural signals along structural or anatomical connections in a brain (explaining why these are associated with the presence of some mental disorder), the spread of beliefs along social networks (explaining the presence of extensive misinformation), and movement (of cars, planes etc.) along transportation networks (explaining patterns of traffic congestion). Examples of this sort represent important uses of networks and are 1 "Process" is not meant to suggest anything metaphysical or something necessarily meeting the requirements of a "process theory" of causation.
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1144299.285027
The World Bank classifies 40 countries as 'small states' on the basis of having a population smaller than 1.5 million (though, oddly, this list excludes some rich tiny countries like Luxembourg and Estonia). …
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1174842.285033
Millstein’s comprehensive but accessible work brings back to the present the importance of Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic”. It functions as much more than a revisiting of his most famous work, A Sand County Almanac, but opens modern conservationism to the light of Leopold’s ideas and critique.
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1237205.28504
What’s the probability that God exists? Here, we’re talking about the God of traditional theism, the O3 world-creator (omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent), or a supremely perfect being. This question recently came up in a debate between Matt Dillahunty and Matthew Adelstein. …
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1266524.285046
This post is a sequel to an earlier discussion of close reading, though it should be self-contained, if closely read. Let’s begin with points of convergence. Like Jonathan Kramnick, John Guillory posits close reading as a skill or technê, a form of acquired know-how or expertise. …
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1283563.285052
The neurodiversity movement grew out of the autism community but is now being applied to many neurological types, from dyslexia to schizophrenia. The resulting neurodiversity paradigm maintains that these neurological differences are normal variations in the human species, like race and sexual orientation, which should be valued and accommodated, not “fixed” or eliminated. Yet some clear-eyed individuals view their brain differences as deficits and would continue to seek treatment in the absence of discrimination or lack of accommodation. I argue that fully appreciating cognitive diversity requires more nuanced normative claims that respect individual differences and fluid circumstances. Although analogies to minority statuses can be useful, variations in personality traits provide a more flexible and inclusive model for neurodivergence. Despite ultimately rejecting the biodiversity metaphor, a more nuanced neuro-diversity paradigm emphasizing our shared humanity can promote compassion, respect, and support for all.
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1294416.285058
This paper introduces the Special Issue of Theoria entitled “Quantum mechanics and reality”. We first comment on its origins related to the VIII International Workshop on Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information, promoted by the International Network on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Information. We then briefly introduce each contribution individually, bringing the papers together under the Special Issue’s topic.
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1294588.285065
An operational approach to quantum mechanics has been developed in the past decades in our group in Brussels. A similar operational approach is taken in this work, to show that the construction of spacetime is specific to each observer. What is usually referred to as the block universe then emerges by noting that parts of the past and future are also contained in the present, but without the limitations that a four-dimensional block universe usually implies, of a reality in which change would be impossible.